GENDER GAP IN EDUCATION: THE CASE OF EASTERN & SOUTHEASTERN REGIONS OF AFGHANISTAN

This research aims to find the size of the gender gap in education in the ten provinces of the Eastern Region (ER) and the South-Eastern Region (SER) of Afghanistan. Based on the World Economic Forum (WEF) approach to the gender gap, the study measures the educational gender gap index (EGGI) at both the regional and provincial level. The study found that the regional EGGI is 0.30. This means that 70% of the gender gap remains. The EGGI in the ER is 0.35, while in the SER it is 0.25, which means that 65% and 75% of the gender gap remains in the ER and the SER respectively. Thus, the gap is smaller in the ER than in the SER. At the provincial level, the best performing province is Nangarhar, where 42% of the gap has been closed. The worst performing province is Wardak, where only 15% of the gap has been closed. Of the six sub-indexes of the EGGI which were calculated from the primary data, the largest gender disparity is in the enrolment in tertiary level education, which has a gap of 69%. The second largest gap is 55% for the number of male and female schools. Both middle school enrolment and teacher gender ratio have similar sized gaps of 53%. The gaps for enrolment in primary education and secondary education are lower, at 30% and 43% respectively. The gap between the male and female studentteacher ratios is 73.6%. Furthermore, there is a 67.7% gap in literacy rate between males and females across the country.